CROMWELL.

Otago Witness, Issue 2371, 10 August 1899, Page 34

CROMWELL.

August 6 — During the session you discourage your correspondents filling up space by talking about the weather, but the extraordinaiy character of thp weather we have been mficted with lately is bufilciciit to palliate an offence against the lule. To-day is August 6, and it has been freezing all day, and icicles are hanging about dripping taps. "We have, in common with the rest of Central Olago, experienced the heaviest frost known for years — somewhere about 38deg below freezing point. This winter is also phenomenal on account of the number of cloudy days — a pall of cloud" roofs over from mountain top to mountain top, and our glor..ins (sunshiny Italian winter seems to have deX^aited. Dredging. — Speculation now rules the roost. "We have become quite an investing community, and everybody is more or le°s mtorsetcd vn some little thirs; or other. I would not like ■to say how man\ thousands of pounds' worth oi scrip are held here, but it is pretty safe to say that what comes in as dividends "goe* out in the shape of calls. For a year or so the local money market will be " tight, as many people have got quite as many shares a" — perhaps more than — they van afford- to hold. It is s-trange to notice how public interest varies, r.mi how one return dwarfs the magnitude cl another. First of all we had the Electric. The returns from thirj property weie never mado public, but everyone knew they 'Aero doin<^ v/pll, and a rumour ot 200oz a week would put the pubic in a lever. Then came the Alpine, on Kiley"s Be.vcli, with returns of 50oz and 60oz, and one of 200oz odd. Everyone iii'jlipd to hear on Saturday afternoons, what c lie had got, and for many montlis her v/ee'dy returns, aveiaginj, 3305, v.pie a f-ource of wonder and comment. Thi n came tho Magnetic, with h"r -lOOoz reluri. J^erybocly tal'icd Jlr-v netic, and the pooi ir.t o Alpine' j G^o?, or 70oz return was lost in 1 lie bhize of gloi'% of the Magnetics hundreds. Jiut the reign of the Magnetic wns short; the Ilartley-Riley struck it, and the Magi'«hc went out of sight. We are siirfeited wit!, returns. If DreuVemaster M'Lay banked lOjOoz for a week's dredging no one would be surprised.